Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Pleasing God Pt.6

Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus. Amen! Some good reports from Africa. We've been able to continue to reach out into the area conducting our seminar. The word had already gotten out of the seminar that we were going to be conducting for the pastors, and it was too late to cancel when British Air cancelled us. So we prayerfully looked at a couple of ways to continue to honor that, and the guys, Tony and Ronnie, went on and conducted the Pastor's Conference there with the assistance of one of our pastors. Charles was there, and they said Charles was just doing a fabulous job in the conference.

Then a couple of others who have helped us. A young man named Richard, who's an outstanding young man. Oversees--it's actually a ministry, it's overseeing a gathering of pastors from the area. About 300 pastors that gather every month. This young man, Richard, oversees that. This young man is taking a stand that is putting it all up on the line. So be prayerful concerning this young man.

Also, some other things that we want you to pray about. A gentlemen who really is known in their midst over there as a true prophet of God. This guy has no political contacts, but he stands and speaks as the oracles of God. Like many true prophets, people that are a little different in some of their ways. It's a man that we were brought into his attention and he is wanting to work with us.

He has told us, he said, "Look, I can't instruct these young pastors like you all have the capacity." He said, "That is not my calling." He said, "For years my heart has broken as I've seen many young men but no one to teach them and instruct them." He said, "Can I somehow put them under your ministry?" The man's name is Kayo. Joe Kayo. He's a young man, about 62, just being used of God.

We're just prayerfully considering how to relate to this particular gentleman. So, be prayerful there. We don't want to make any mistakes. We want to be sure that what we're doing is purely the Word of God and about the Kingdom of God. So, be prayerful if you would. This particular gentleman has been in all of the meetings. He said, "I just want to sit and learn." He's probably the most reverenced man in the nation, spiritually. People don't always agree with him, but they've never been able to say he hasn't spoken the Word of God. Our kind of guy, praise God. We were looking forward to fellowshipping with him. We need spiritual discernment, so I'm just asking you to make that an urgent matter of prayer, as we're considering which direction to go.

The meetings have gone well. We had men show up from numerous nations that were there, and Kayo who's a national who's been ministering the Word of God for about forty years in Africa. He said, "I want you to know that what you had here in these meetings is the cream of the crop." He said, "It's not like some of the other conferences that I've been to." He said, "They're showing up by the thousands, but" he said, "they're the people who went, but were not sent." He said, "What you have here is the cream of the crop." So, we're believing that God's ordered our steps, and we just ask that you would continue to pray.

We haven't heard any more word. I have a couple of e-mails from them that things went very well and that God was blessing in the meetings, and so looking forward--When we get more details, of course, we'll share those with you.

Let's turn to Hebrews 11. We want to continue our study on pleasing God. The one thing that, of course, we understand is our responsibility as the whole duty of man. Philosophers really like to wow one another with the deep questions of life. What is the purpose of man? Well, it's a very simple answer, "The whole duty of man, to fear God, to love God and to keep His commandments" (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Amen? That's why we exist. The philosophers don't even know why we're here. We're not an accident. We're creatures created in the image of God, created for His divine purpose. Our whole reason for being is to love Him and keep His commandments.

As we've been studying the attributes of God and understanding really who God is--that's the problem I believe in Christianity today, especially here in America, we've so Americanized God that people really don't know who the God of the Bible is. We've either made Him a Santa Claus God through the faith movement or we've made Him some type of an ogre through some of our legalistic holiness movements, or we've somehow made Him an absentee God, a nebulous God, tragically through the decline of many of the historical denominations. People don't know who He is today. As we go back and discover who the God of the Bible is, it's discomforting for a lot of people because they realize that He's a personal God, that He's a holy God and that they're responsible to Him. A lot of people, of course, in our nation don't want to be responsible to anybody. This is the land of the free. They seem to think that it means we can do anything we want even as it pertains to the Kingdom of God. We see it in our churches today. A lot of what we try to throw back in history--it's tough to find churches today that are having mid week and Sunday night services. People say, "That's just historical, that's just tradition, we don't really need that today." What we need to understand is this, the church met daily, amen? There was not a first century and a 21st century church, there's only the Church. There's only one God and He's immutable and He doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. What He did in the first century He's doing in the 21st century. What the standards were in the first century, they are in the 21st century.

When we come to understand that, then we can't recreate God in our own image but we have to be created in His image and be holy as He is holy. So the standard is to be holy as He is holy, not an American standard of holiness, a biblical standard of holiness. When we understand what holiness is--holiness is not behavior, it's not morality. We mistake that. Many times we think holiness is morality. Holiness is not morality. The words "holy, sanctified" mean to be set apart. We are a people that are set apart. We are a people distinct. We're a people unique, and the world should not be able to identify with us or us with the world--their system, their methodology. When we talk about worldliness, we're not talking about legalistic standards. We don't smoke, we don't chew, and we don't run with girls that do--all of that kind of holiness. We're not talking about that. We're not talking about "clothesline" holiness. When we talk about the world, we're talking about all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. The world is comprised of, what the Scripture makes very clear, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Many of us think that the tree was just evil. It's not, it's good, but it's good without God. Anything that is good without God is evil. It's humanism. The Church is content today with doing good and we need to do godliness because Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). "Without me you can do nothing that is approved of Me," is what He's saying to us.

So as we review here for a moment in what it means to please God, we see that to please Him is to love Him with all of our heart, mind, body and strength, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. To please Him is to keep His commandments. "If you love Me you will keep My commandments, and the Scripture says that they will not be grievous to you" (1 John 5:30). The commandments of God are not hard to those that love Him, that know Him, that have been arrested by His holiness. So we're a people that are unique, set apart. We can't identify with the world. I can't think the way that they think. Their philosophies make no sense to me. Their methodology makes no sense to me. It's foolishness. You and I walking by faith is foolishness to them. They're going to say you're a fool to believe in healing by the stripes of Jesus. You're a fool to believe in the power of a personal God who answers prayer, Who said the prayer of faith would save the sick and the Lord will raise them up, Who said the effectual fervent prayer avails much; Who said that all things are possible to him that believeth. You're a fool for believing that. There's no fellowship between light and darkness.

So we are a people of absolutes, and because of that we're unique, and because of that there is a great volume of people who profess to be the Church through the general standard of saying, "I believe in Jesus." "Do you believe in Jesus?" "Yes, I believe in Jesus." Beloved, the devils believe and tremble, amen? You don't believe if you don't obey. There is no obedience--and we're going to talk about that this morning--there is no obedience, there is no pleasing God, or there is no love, there is no relationship, without obedience. There is no pleasing God without a life of obedience, of keeping His commandments.

So with that little bit of review, let's go back to Hebrews 11 and look at where we were. We saw the basic definitions of faith. The thing that we want you to understand about faith is this: unlike many of the faith teachers from Oklahoma, the Bible does not teach that faith is a force unto itself. Faith is not a force separate from God. Now, they would say that it originates in God but it's separate. It is not. What I'm going to show you this morning is this: there can be no biblical faith without biblical relationship to the faithful God. I thought it was neat that we sang that as our last chorus this morning. Richard didn't have any idea that we were going to teach on faithfulness this morning. He is a faithful God. There cannot be biblical faith without understanding that God is faithful. When I talk about the faithfulness of God, I want to take just a moment here and explain to you what that is. Faithfulness is not a characteristic or a character trait of God. Theologians like to use the term attribute, and in theology many times we misunderstand what the attributes of God are.

What are some of the attributes of God? Well, we would say that God is omniscient; God is omnipotent; God is omnipresent; God is eternal; God is infinite; God is immutable, which is the attribute that corresponds to faithfulness. Immutability just means that there is no change. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. One of the biggest problems in people's thinking about God comes down to making distinctions between the attributes of God and separating them and making them entities unto themselves. We can speak of these things as being distinct but we can't think of them as being distinct. Okay, think with me for a moment. We can speak of them, we can identify them and speak of them separately, but we can never separate them in our minds or you're going to make a mistake about who God is, because you see, God cannot be immutable without being infinite. His immutability is infinite. There is no change in God. He is infinitely omnipotent. All power, total power, eternally. It never began, it will never cease. We're going to go one more step, and we've talked about it in the past, but just to refresh you as we study the faithfulness of God. Where we get into the most trouble as Christians is when we begin to look at justice and love as it pertains to God. God justly loves and loves justly. You say, "Well, isn't that the same thing?" Not really, because it depends on what the application is in how God is expressing Himself. His wrath, His judgment, is an expression of His perfect love. It is justice being applied in love through infinite wisdom and knowledge because everything that God does is for Himself. That's where we miss it. We seem to think that God blesses us for who we are--His children. No, He blesses us because of who He is, for His own eternal purposes. "Well, that sounds like selfishness." There is no selfishness in God. He is perfect love. That will help you to understand Him, as we continue in this study, when you're facing different trials. Everything that is happening in your life that may seem to be adverse is God's perfect love toward you in allowing you to be purified and conformed into His image, for Him to be able to be glorified in your deliverance, "For He will not allow us to be tempted past that we're able, and with every temptation He makes the way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Praise God!

Do you know who He is this morning? How are you going to please Him if you don't know who He is and what He demands of us? What it is that really touches the heart of God. If we don't understand that, you're going to try to appropriate faith that is works oriented. "If I can believe this then God will be pleased and then He will somehow back up my statement of faith or my prayer." He's the Author and the Finisher of our faith, amen? It originates in Him and it consummates in Him. We're only earthen vessels, conduits through which the presence and the power of God are able to flow for the purpose of Him receiving eternal glory. It's not about you, it's about God. We've become so man-centered in our churches today that we've lost sight of what true worship is. Many of our churches, Bible believing churches, charismatic churches, in our theology are making God our servant. We expect God to answer His Word, praise God. We've heard people make bold statements. "I'm going to hold up the Word and God's obligated to keep it." I want to tell you something. God is obligated to no man and no word. "Well, the Bible says that God and His Word are one and that He's taken His Word and He's even elevated it above His holy name." I want to talk about Romans 10:17, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God."

Statements like that are making a basic fundamental mistake, and what would that be? They're assuming that the Word is something that is separate or distinct from the Person. They're thinking that the Word remains an entity, eternal but that the source may have a tendency to waffle. Our God is immutable. He is a faithful God. There is no change in Him. You cannot believe this Word if you think your God is anything other than immutable. Therefore, we're going to hold Him contractually to His Word as though He is not going to perform it. You'll never be able to believe His Word if you don't know who He is and what His purposes toward us are, His creation. So don't make the mistake of trying to make these distinct. Do not make the mistake of becoming people involved in bibliolatry. That's the worship of the Bible. Never forget the origin of this Word. We don't worship this. This is the expression of who we worship, His eternal purposes decreed to you and I.

When we read Romans 10:17, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God," that word "hearing," as we've shared with you many times in the past, it's a Greek word that really means an audience. It doesn't mean audio perception. It doesn't mean that on a tape I play a biblical passage and somehow faith is infused in your heart. Faith doesn't come that way. Faith comes by an audience, a visitation of God. When we understand where faith comes from, it comes from when you and I are in proper fellowship with God and in that intimacy like John laying upon the heart, the bosom, of Jesus, He decrees a thing to us, an eternal purpose and because of our awareness of who He is, our desire to see Him glorified and honored, we then respond and become agents representing His will. That's how genuine biblical faith expresses itself. Don't think that you're going to get faith, beloved, by sitting down and reading and memorizing the Bible, though you do need to sit down and read every day and memorize the Scriptures.

Faith is going to come in your worship. Faith is going to come in the direct correlation to your obedience, your purposing to keep what it is that God speaks to us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, as we saw in this 11th chapter. Then we went down and we saw, "Without faith [verse 6] it is impossible to please Him. Because he that cometh to God must believe that He is." What a phrase that is. He that comes to God must believe that He is. That He is what? That He is what He's revealed Himself to be in the Person of Jesus, the living Word, and in the Bible, the written Word. He's immutable and He's the same. Everything that He did in Abraham's life is available to you. Everything that He did in Moses' life is available to you. And in Elijah's life, a man subject to like passions such as you and I, it's available to you. In the life of the apostle Paul, it is available to you. Then the mind blower of all, when Jesus said, "And you know what, He's going to love you as He loved me." It's beyond our comprehension that we could have such a relationship with Yahweh of Scriptures, El Shad the Almighty. We didn't seek Him, but He sought us and His eternal purpose was to cause us to become overcomers and to be raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places, as He is overcome.

What does it mean, then, to please God? What does it mean that without faith it's impossible to please God? What this passage is saying to us in the 6th verse is this: without recognizing His faithfulness it's impossible to touch His heart. Without understanding and communing with Him in faithfulness, the awareness of His faithfulness, it is impossible to please Him, because you'll never understand His eternal purposes. You'll always want to be holding Him contractually to covenant promises because you really don't believe that He's a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. Not an obligatory relationship, a rewarder of those that diligently seek blessings. A rewarder of those that hold Him to His promises. No. A rewarder of those that seek His presence, that realize that to encounter Him is to become undone, and to take the coal from the altars and put them on our lips and say, "I'm a man of unclean lips." To encounter Him is to take your hand, like Job, and put it over your mouth and say, "I've just blabbed too much. I've spoken things that are far beyond my understanding. I just need to shut up and know this: the Lord gives, the Lord takes; blessed be the name of the Lord. The judge of the all the earth does right, praise God!" It brings us into the true realm of biblical faith, which is rest, trust, reliance, assurance, in the holiness of God, His being.

Remember, when we talk about God, and we're going to look at some of His attributes as we study this on faith as we go on, remember God is a unitary being. You can't segment Him. The Trinity is unitary. I'm not even going to get into that, okay. The Three in One, the One being Three. Explain it. No, I can't, but I believe it because it's revealed. I understand that in the expression of the Trinity we also understand the very attributes of God, how they cannot be distinct. We have to understand that as we relate to Him in this one attribute we're going to look at right now called the faithfulness of God. The faithfulness of God--I want to talk about that probably this morning and in this evening's session.

I think one of the great expressions, of course, is found in the statement that Sara makes in this 11th chapter, verse 11, "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed..." Sara, the one that laughed at God. "I didn't laugh." "Yes you did, and because of that you're going to name this boy Isaac, laughter. Every time you call him and that young boy comes, that miracle comes, you're going to realize that you laughed at Me. Every day of your life you're going to be reminded by this miracle of what can happen if you'll believe instead of doubt; if you'll look beyond your own strength which is now abated, if you'll believe that everything is possible to God, if you'll believe that it's about more, Sara, than you having a baby."

Ladies, when you pray, "Oh, I wish I could have a baby," and we've prayed for some of you and God has blessed and touched your bodies. I used to make a statement that Janet would get after me about. She said, "Don't say that. People are going to misquote you." I said years ago, "I got more women pregnant than any other preacher in this area." So many women that were barren in the years of the miracle rallies that we would pray for, God was blessing them and opening their wombs and they were able to have children. But you see, in Sara's life it was more than about Sara having a baby.

This is what I want us to see in our lives. It's more than just this immediate need in your life. The miracle was to transcend generations. The promise was to Abraham and his seed, not seeds as in many, but seed as in One, Christ, the Scripture says. Everything that happened in their individual lives was to bring about an eternal consequence, which in this case was the reconciliation of humanity, the regeneration of mankind. You're probably not going to have that big of an ordeal taking place in your life, but it's not about you. Don't just believe God for that baby, those of you who are not able to get pregnant. Don't just believe God to be healed in your body so that you can feel better and play golf without pain. The visitation is for the glory of God. The visitation, the expression of God's miraculous power, is not just about blessing you and making you feel better. It's about destroying the kingdom of darkness. It's about bringing exaltation to the kingdom of light, because frankly there's a generation out there today who isn't aware of the presence of this holy God. There's a whole generation in this nation that looks at Christianity and all they see is religion, and men's methodology, and mass mailing and programs, and have no clue that hands can be laid on them in the name of Jesus and they can recover, that devils can be cast out, that manna can still come down from heaven, praise God! What's motivating us is a jealousy for the glory of our God, for the elevation again of the integrity of His Word in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

Can I ask you something this morning? Are you a candidate for pleasing God? Is it on your heart this morning to say, "Here am I, Lord, send me?" Scriptures says, "His eyes are searching to and fro over this earth" (2 Chronicles 16:9). You know what? They can land in this little place called Sterling, in this little congregation and a heart can be touched. An infusion of the glory of God that, should Jesus tarry, could be the next Wesley, could be the next Moody, could be the next Billy Sunday. We're not going to settle for anything less, praise God.

As we study and we look at these things, listen to what it was that moved in their lives. The miracle manifested and Isaac was the reminder. The miracle was the reminder of their doubt and yet there it was. You know what, it reveals to you and I? What can I do in my own strength? Nothing but doubt. The only thing I can do in my own strength is laugh at God. The only thing I can do is pray and say, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." But though we fail, the apostle said, "He cannot deny Himself." There is always an avenue back to Him, back to the heart of God. If you've strayed at all in your daily walk on reliance upon the supernatural, it's only one decision away of repentance and saying, "Lord, I've shown what I can do here in my own strength and I just ask you right now to deliver me from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from all of the natural reliance, and let me again trust in Your faithfulness."

As we go on in the study, you all know, we're not talking about presumptuous behavior. We're not talking about jumping off pinnacles and saying, "Well, if God's here, He'll catch me." We're going to pick you up in a sponge, because it is written, "Thou shall not tempt the Lord your God" (Matthew 4:7). I want you to know something. In addition to that, the Scripture says, "He has given His angels charge over us lest we dash our foot against a stone" (Matthew 4:6). They are mighty in power, hearkening to the Word of the Lord. They're there to be dispersed on our behalf. The angels of God are present to slap the wheels off the chariots of our enemies so that they drive heavily and God makes the way of escape, as the sea opens before you and you cross on dry land. I want to tell you something. You could not cross that sea on dry land one day before the 400 years were up. That's where presumption comes in where we start trying to do things in our own time, in our own way. You need to find out what the program of God is through fellowshipping with Him and His Word. Then you will know, like Daniel, when the 70 years are up and the day is upon you, and God will begin to put the burden in your heart for your deliverance. Then you'll know the hour that Moses was ordained to fulfill and God will be glorified in the miraculous. It's not going to be done in man's programs and in man's time.

What we do when God doesn't do it our way and in our time, we count Him unfaithful. Maybe we're the unfaithful ones, not to know the heart and the program of God. Maybe we ought to put our hand over our mouths like Job and quit trying to justify ourselves. The reason God was ticked off at Job was--He said, "Job, you've tried to justify yourself instead of me." Tragically, that's what so much is happening in our churches today that try to believe in the full Gospel, and when God doesn't answer a prayer and God doesn't heal a body, and when God doesn't bring a deliverance of the business or whatever it is, somehow we have to explain why "because it couldn't be me. I was believing God. It couldn't be that my faith failed. It must have been God." Or we take the other tack, "God's Word is true, your faith failed. You're a no good dog. There must be sin in your life, unbelief." You know, like Job's comforters, and it's neither one, beloved. It's a lack of understanding the promises of God from the eternal perspective.

When we see in Hebrews 11 that those all died in faith, not having received the promise, the issue is not the receiving of the promise, the issue is the establishing of true biblical faith which is a relationship with a faithful God, which is far more important than the manifestation of a promise. Now, the promises are going to come. The blessings of God are going to overtake you. God will bless you out of your socks. He'll give you exceeding abundant above anything that you could ever ask or ever think but the mandate is this, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these other things will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33). Seek the kingdom of God. Seek the kingdom of light. Everything else is going to be added to you. It's so vital that we come into that understanding and able, then, to relate to God in His faithfulness.

Turn over to Deuteronomy, chapter 7, for just a moment. Let's look at a couple of verses as we introduce this topic, and we'll be dealing with it some more tonight--the embracing the faithfulness of God. What is faithfulness? When we talk about someone who is faithful, a faithful individual is someone that is to be relied upon, trustworthy, consistent. "Faithfulness" (pistos), faith, faithful, speaks of trustworthy, reliable. As it pertains to God, we need to understand that He is infinitely trustworthy. "Infinite," meaning total, complete. So we attach to it the term from a theological perspective, the immutability, or God's inability to change. He is faithful to His essence, His being. God cannot cease to be what He is and all his actions relate to who He is. He can never act distinctly from His person, His being. I use the word "distinctly;" that's the wrong word. He can never act contrary. It will always be distinctive to who He is. In other words, God can't say one thing and do something else. That's why we say His Word is sure to a thousand generations. He watches over His Word to perform it. Beloved, if I could communicate this somehow. All of these words that we read in the Bible are descriptive at their best. Some of you who misunderstand what the Bible is could even have trouble with this statement, but I want you to understand something. At the best, these words are so far inferior to God and His purposes. "Well, I believe that the Word of God is perfect. It's complete." That word "perfect" means complete and it is absolutely perfect in relating, listen, eternal, infinite truths to finite minds. How could this be infinite and your finite mind comprehend it? You're going to hold God to a finite expression of an eternal, infinite purpose? Maybe you ought to put your hand over your mouth and get to know the faithfulness of God and understand that in your little peanut finite brain you're going to be better off getting to know God than trying to understand Him. Can you say amen to that?

If you're going to approach God with a contract--you know why men need contracts today? They don't trust the person. I don't try to hold God to His Word, I try to hold myself to His Word and come to know God, because in this relationship there's only one of us who is a liar and it's me. There's only one of us who is a sinner and it's me. There's only one of us capable of being deceived and it's me. There's only one of us capable of walking in darkness and it's me. I am not going to walk in that room with this contract and say, "I'm holding You accountable to Your Word." Who am I? I know what the trite answers are. I'm an ambassador of God.

We were handing out tracts over here at Chick-fil-A and this guy comes up. We had the cars out there and I was handing out things with the cars. This guy comes up and says, "Dude! Whoa! Wow! What do you do, man?" I'm looking at this guy and I say, "I'm an ambassador." He goes, "Whoa, far out!" He'd look at his buddy and say--he was looking at the one car doing the big wheels and he says, "This is a bad dude. This is my hero, man. This dude's bad. He's an ambassador." I said, "We're ambassadors of the Kingdom." I was trying to go slow with this guy because he was like, "Whoa!" We're here sharing Jesus with people and began to share with him our purpose in being there. I don't think a whole bunch stuck.

I know all of the arguments of what our rights are and who we are in Jesus. I understand all of that. I can give you the answers as good as anybody but they're wrong, they're immature; they're shallow, because they're man-centered and not God-centered. When we come to understand that we do have a covenant with God, but not to hold Him responsible, but to hold us responsible. Not to remind Him, but to remind us of who He is, what He has promised and what our benefits are. God, beloved, is faithful. Found Deuteronomy yet? Chapter 7, verse 9, and we'll finish with this for this morning. We'll pick it back up tonight. We'll be having our fellowship around the Lord's table tonight in remembrance of His goodness to us, His gift. Deuteronomy 7, verse 9, "Know therefore that the LORD thy God He is God [now there's a mouthful], the faithful God, which keepeth covenant [That would be interesting if it stopped there but it doesn't] and mercy with them that [say it] love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations." So the requisite that's directed toward man from the infinite, immutable, eternal, self-existent, self-sufficient, uncaused Cause of all things--that's just a way of saying God--speaks these words to make us aware of what our benefits are. Depraved man, unregenerate man, in his own ego, thinks so far below what God has intended for us. He said, [now watch] "The covenant is faithful to a thousand generations to those that love Him and keep His commandments." The Psalmist says in Psalm 89:1, "I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations."

Oh, beloved, as we end this morning--the mercies of God. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever! When you understand this aspect of the faithfulness of God, you'll know that every good thing that comes to us is an expression of His mercy. Mercy is a derivative of another attribute, the goodness of God. "God is good all the time," that little chorus that we used to sing. If God is good then He's infinitely good, He's eternally good. His goodness works in direct harmony with His faithfulness so we can trust in God being good and those that come to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. Let's end with this for this morning. Let's stop trying to get faith by finding promises that speak directly to my desire and let's begin to allow our faith to come by the pursuit of His goodness, His mercy, His faithfulness. As we commune with Him in the midst of this relationship, He will speak a rhema, a specific word, into your heart, Romans 10:17; that will infuse you with a purpose to go represent Him and to not faint at circumstances, to call things that are not as though they were. It's not a force separate from Him; it is the outshining of His abiding in you.

Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning and we just ask that you would show Yourself in our midst that we might come to know You and represent You more effectively. We're not here to build our own kingdoms. We're not here to ask You to bless us. We're here asking You to let us represent You, to be ambassadors sent forth from this kingdom to show humanity there is another way, there is another life. To bring to them without compromise the Word of reconciliation that man can return to Father freely because of Your finished work, Jesus. As we come to You, we come not as vagabonds, but we come as recipients of the fatted calf being killed, the ring upon our fingers, the robe upon our back. Not because we believed but because You loved, and for that we say thank You, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's stand before the Lord this morning. Take a moment as Gary plays for us. Allow the Holy Spirit to apply whatever principle applies to you this morning. What did God speak to you this morning? Of all of these words that came forth, what was the word to you this morning? It's different to every one of us here. It'll change your life if you'll embrace it by faith. Jesus' great parable said the enemy comes immediately to take it from you. Purpose to do what God has spoken to you this morning. Don't let any man steal your crown, your reward. Guard with jealously what you heard this morning and fight the good fight of faith. When your own flesh rises up and says it's not possible, cast down every evil imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. His intent for you is good, not because of you but because of Him. All that God does is for His own purpose and His own pleasure, because all that exists is for Him.

Let's sing this together and worship Him this morning. Yes, Lord. Just declare His faithfulness again. You are Lord and You're worthy. Hallelujah! Just take a moment this morning to thank Him for His love. Hallelujah! Just thank Him this morning for His love to you and His goodness. He's worthy of your praise. He's worthy of your worship. Hallelujah! Declare His majesty. You are faithful to those that love You and keep Your commandments, and that can only be accomplished in us because you are faithful, for it's You that worketh in us to will and to do Your good pleasure. Here am I, Lord; send me. It's my heart's desire, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, before you go turn to somebody next to you and say, "He's a faithful God." Amen. Go in peace, God's love go with you.

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